Live and Let Die
by Blizpeak
Summary: One Shot: After becoming distraught over the disappearance of Nathaniel, missing in action since the defeat of Nouda, Kitty summons Bartimaeus once more to inquire as to his whereabouts. A finale of sorts, a much needed closer to the third book.


_Kitty_

Kitty dropped her satchel beside the doorway of the small room; a study of sorts, made for a magician but riddled with misuse. Books lay stacked upon the oak desk, coated in a fine layer of dust and the remains of active spider's webs. The bookshelf along one wall was crammed with leather-bound volumes, parchments, rolls of aged scrolls and the like; pictures hung in tarnished silver frames tainted with magic and lime residue.

The very room, Kitty could recall, within which she traversed the Other Place in her attempt to find Bartimaeus. It was to ask of his help that she carried the _Apocrypha_ from Mr. Button's study, pouring over it's contents of the Other Place, and tranquility between Demons and the Human Race.

Even now she could still see the red-painted pentacles – one smudged from her journey through to the Other Place – lying dormant in their solitude, weighed heavily with magic still. Quickly, taking a spare stick of chalk from the drawer of the abandoned desk, she repaired the line.

If it did not suffice, there was no telling what Bartimaeus would do.

She brushed a grey-silver bang from her face and stood in the center of one pentacle; purposefully the ruptured one, so that a chance of failure was lessened significantly.

Steadying her spread hands and squaring her stance within the pentacle, she muttered the summoning incantation. She knew it by heart now; for it was specifically this purpose that she studied magic, enough to know summoning of Demons.

Or, at least, the djinni Bartimaeus.

Her last words uttered, she felt the wood-paneled floor beneath her feet begin to tremble and quake, tremors being cast forth from the twin pentacle facing her own.

Slowly, and quite surely, a sulfuric smoke began to seep from within.

_Bartimaeus_

I felt the tug on my essence long before I heard the incantation. Honestly! You would think that the magicians had enough on their plate now to risk summoning demons again, much less myself. As per usual, I put up a struggle, keeping an ear open for errors in the spell.

No such luck.

Hmm…now, what to be, what to be? I finally settled upon a cloud of sulfur, brilliant yellow eyes gleaming from within.

Hey, it scared most people.

I reared back, the apex of my cloud soaring to its boundaries, thunder claps echoing in the distance.

"It is I, Bartimaeus of Uruk!" I shouted, my voice booming and rolling like an onsetting storm, metaphorical fingers twitching with glee.

"Sakhr al-Jinni! N'gorso the Mighty! The Serpent of Silver Plumes! The Keeper of -"

I stopped short.

Sighing, my form compressed with an audible _squeak_ into a mass of putrid, olive slime.

"Hello, Kitty," I mumbled, not gratified in the slightest.

"Well, you _had_ a show going," she huffed, arms crossing over her chest.

"And _what_ is _that_?"

I examined myself.

"…What? You don't like it? It just so happens to be a personal favorite -"

"Oh, come off it. Stop the cheek, I haven't got the time."

"Well! I _never_…"

"What happened?" Kitty pressed, her hands falling to her hips as she leaned forward.

My gaze fell briefly to the floor, praying that she would lean over the line of the pentacle. She followed my gaze and shifted slightly back from the pentacle's borders.

I snorted.

"Why…you fixed the pentacle, too!" I exclaimed in sadistic sarcasm, flinching back, clouded hands flying to my unseen face.

The next moment I shifted. To my actual favorite guise: an Egyptian boy, kilt wrapped about his waste, what remained of his shaved black hair slicked back into a ponytail.

Ptolemy. Before he had changed.

"So much for _trust_," I sniffed, crossing my arms and turning my back to her.

Just in case she needed to be reminded of what it meant.

Her reaction surprised me.

"Yes!" she screamed, loosing it entirely, hands flying into the air in exasperation.

"That's exactly it! So. Much. For. Trust."

Her fists fell back to her sides, clenching, her grey hair falling into her seething face.

I blinked.

"What _happened_!"

"What happened _where_?" I snapped back, flustered.

"What exactly are you talking about? I nearly got whiplash from going to the Other Place and back! Or have you forgotten what it felt like?"

She ignored the snide comment.

"You remember! You. Nathaniel. The Glass Palace! Nouda, for God's sake!" she screamed, her nose just inches away from the boundary line.

But I wasn't paying attention to the obvious details. Just to her words.

"Erm…hehe…well, about that -" I began, clasping my hands together nervously.

"Tell me!"

"Alright, alright, hold your horses," I pressed, motioning for her to stay away from the outlying rims once more.

"Nouda was…defeated!"

I clapped my hands in self applause enthusiastically, grinning.

Kitty was not amused.

My clapping slowed to a trickle.

"What? Did you _want_ London to be suddenly devoid of its people, Europe to be quickly swallowed with it?" I demanded, frowning.

"Because that's exactly what would have happened, you know," I added, her silence deafening.

Kitty cleared her throat, unanswering.

I stared.

"Oh. Does my mistress want more?" I spat.

"Bartimaeus!" she moaned, a hand running through her bangs.

"Don't do this! Not _now_…"

"Do what?"

She sighed, slouching to a sitting position. I remained standing.

"Nathaniel's been missing for three days. The council was livid, but now they're just worried as hell. They have no clue where he is."

She met my eyes once again, a sad look glazed over them.

"And you two swore. You promised me that you would meet me at the palace after Nouda was destroyed. And that…that was the last time that I saw him."

She took a breath.

"I _know_," she whispered, eyes tearing, "that you know where he is. Or…or if he's even alive or not."

My lips pressed together as she wiped her eyes dry with the back of her arm.

"Just _tell_ me," she said quickly, holding out a hand to stop me from saying anything.

Though, mysteriously, I had nothing to say.

"Is he dead? Or alive?"

I sighed again, glancing down as I examined the cuticles of my nails.

"You really want to know?" I asked casually, glancing in her direction.

She nodded.

I looked back to my hand.

"Fine. He's dead."

The air in the room was thick enough to be cut with a knife. The only sound coming from the aggravating _tick, tock, tick, tock_ of a clock hanging in one corner.

A shaking sob made me look up again.

"You…you _heartless_," Kitty gasped, glaring at me.

"He's _dead_? And you can just say it, like…like _that_!" she continued, standing upright.

I backed up slowly.

"Hey," I said slowly, putting up my hands in symbolic defense.

"Let's not be so hasty -"

"How could you let him _die_ like that -"

"Now _hold it_," I snapped, my turn to be angry, interrupting Kitty with a voice that made her fall silent.

"Just for your information, first of all," I began heavily, a glare in my eyes, "I didn't exactly have a _choice_ in the matter."

"But, how could you not -"

"_Second_ of all, you would not _believe_ what he told me off with! '_You're a good servant, _

_Bartimaeus. But far from perfect_'!"

"You know that he probably didn't -"

"And _thirdly_," I finished, voice ever rising, "I did **not** let him…"

A slight pause for dramatic effect…

"…die."

"He chose his sacrifice," I continued, cutting off Kitty as she opened her mouth to say something.

"And there was little that I could do once he dismissed me…against my will."

I ended quietly, giving Kitty time to reflect.

Humans. They needed to be spoken to _very slowly_ sometimes, so that their 'emotions' have time to catch up with them. Otherwise, you come out with a basket-case, like…eh, well, like Nathaniel for example.

But I wasn't about to tell _her _that.

"Just like Ptolemy," she whispered, toying with her hair again.

I pursed my lips.

"You know if you can't keep your hands off it, why don't you just chop it all off -"

"Oh, don't deny it Bartimaeus," she began coolly, a laugh slowly gracing her face.

I raised my eyebrows calmly.

"Okay then. Out with it. _Do tell_," I began, shifting once more into a smaller Egyptian Mau and curling up on the dirty floor, my back to her.

"You know that it was _exactly_ like Ptolemy. A _Ptolemy_ situation. You: the protector. Nathaniel and Ptolemy: the masters that send you off at the last minute with a farewell and a blow-kiss, telling you that you did a dandy job right then and there -"

The Mau reeled around then, hissing venom into her pentacle. Kitty leaped back with an uncharacteristic _yelp_, facing the cat's piercing glare.

"There are things – oh, and there _are _things – that I would just love to say to you, Kitty Jones. And they _would_ affect the rating of this story!" I spat, turning into Ptolemy once more.

"…What?"

I inhaled deeply and exhaled with a sigh. No need to become over-irrational.

Oh. I know what you were thinking. Not _emotional_, irrational.

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what words would affect the rating of this story when she held up a hand.

"Silence," she said distractedly, thinking.

My jaw dropped.

"Young Lady, you don't tell _me_ to silen -"

"You're lying," she began softly, gazing up to meet my face.

"Is that so?" I leered, fury sneaking into my worn voice.

"Yeah. That's _so_," she retorted, trying to look triumphant.

"Alright sweetie, that's not exactly helping the face-job any -"

"Would you shut up and let me talk!" she huffed, continuing her small speech.

"Not to rain on your parade," she continued, "but isn't that what you told Nathaniel when I fled the Golem. That _I _was dead?"

I stopped short.

"Well…hmm, you do have a point there."

"So is it not quite possible that he fled the scene – maybe to start a new life – and in doing so dismissed you once more, with final orders to tell me off with whatever lie you fathomed?"

She stared me down, grinning now; arms crossed over her chest and dried tears sparkling on her wrinkled cheeks.

Hoo boy. Denial.

"That's not _exactly_ what happened, Kitty. But because I get the nagging feeling that you won't believe any other story -"

"Because they're not true."

"- You may believe what you want. Just don't be surprised when you never see him again."

"Uh-huh, yeah."

"He just disappeared, you know, once the Staff was released. Faster than blinking."

"_Goodbye_ Bartimaeus," she sighed.

It was then that I realized that Kitty had her hands raised before her, and was trying in vain to dismiss me.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," I muttered, stepping back.

"Just…okay Kitty, actually listen this time."

"Listening."

"Please…I beg of you…don't summon me again."

"Bartimaeus…"

"It's just that Nathaniel said the exact same thing. And did he keep his promise? _No_…"

"Okay, okay, Bartimaeus."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Pinky-swear?"

"Pinky…wait. Nevermind," she laughed nervously, realizing that in the process she would have left the pentacle.

A swirl of fragrant wind whipped about my feet. Kitty was taking her lovely old time dismissing me, she was.

"Oh, and Kitty," I cut in, my feet already dematerializing to smoke.

"Yeah?"

"Good 'ol Nate's last words weren't '_And tell Kitty whatever lie you can fathom, Bartimaeus_'."

"They weren't eh?" she asked, curiosity evident in spite of herself.

"Nope," I grinned as my head was wreathed in nothingness.

"They were, '_Say hello to Kitty for me_'," I whispered.

My laugh echoed in the empty room, mocking the look on Kitty's face.


End file.
